My Wonderful Mom

I am sure I am not alone in saying that it is not easy to put into words the feelings one has for their mother.  They are feelings that grow over a lifetime and continue to develop as the years go by.  Now as a mother and grandmother myself, I now know that one’s mothering skills definitely increase as we mature with age and experience.   I am eternally grateful for my mother and her willingness to work at becoming good at parenting.  I have fond childhood memories of my mother.  Her example of faithfulness to God, her husband, and her family has blessed my life. I am so grateful that she is still here to bless my life, the lives of all my posterity, and the lives of all her know her.  The following are pictures from mom's 80^th B-day party on October 8, 2011 in Cedar Hills, Utah. (My family members who are missing from these pictures are my dad who passed away three years ago, David & Jessica's who live in Arizona with their three children, and Lindsey and Adam's and two daughters who live in Kansas.)

Linda, Mom, Shirley, Janet

Kate & Taylor, Grandma

Dmitri, Don, Grandma, Janey

Steve, Mom, Linda

Shawn, Dennis, Grandma, Janet, Jared, & Jeremy in front

Dallin, Grandma, Whitlie

Louise Hulda Jones Simmons 

Gary, Mom, Cossette

Shilrey, Mom, Stan

Chandra, Grandma, Mark

My brothers laid mom on our laps just for fun.

Mom and Linda

Aubrey, Kylie, Grandma, Camron, Cade, (In front) Makenzie & Cassie

Summer 2011

As I take a few minutes to sit down, reflect, and update my blog, I realize what a wonderful year it has been thus far, and we still have three more months to go!  I think this year has been unusually busy.  We’ve had a new grandson born, an engagement, a wedding, four trips to the west (with one more still to come), visiting family and tending a grandchild, having family members visits us here in New York (with a wonderful seven weeks of Dallin and Whitlie staying while they did their internships in Manhattan).  And just to make sure we were keeping up the pace and not thinking of slacking, we had an earthquake, a hurricane, and a son graduate from PA school all in the same week. Now we are trying to “sneak” through September with only our normally busy schedules, responsibilities, and visitors. (OK, I cannot get the pictures to arrange the way I want them to and now they are all messed up.)

Dallin & Whitlie's NYC Internships

Falling Waters - The Kauffman House

I spent 3 weeks enjoying Dmitri's fun personality. 

Enjoying Addi, Kate, & Garrett - Not enjoy time in AZ

Grandpa's Story Time

Playing with Addi was great fun!

Grandpa & Cade

Taking Time to Read at the Children's Museum.

Addi's Flower Garden

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Dmitri's Cousin Time

Enjoying the Generations

4 Generation Kauffman Family Cemetary, PA

Family walk with the Hills.

Swimming Party!

Rained out after 17 minutes at US Open

Milestones Can Sneak up Slowly

It is true that by small and simple things great things come to pass.  Seconds add up to minutes, minutes up to hours, hours up to days, days up to years, and years up to a lifetime, and events that seemed would never arrive really do come.  To me life has been about growing up, falling in love, marrying, having a family of my own, raising them and seeing them all married and starting their own families.  It is the way I was taught it should be.  But no one told me how I would feel when the last child really did fall in love and get married.  It is interesting to have great feelings of happiness and gratitude mixed with those of loss.  I wondered why I did not experience more of these feelings with the other children, and I have concluded it is because I always had another child at home who needed me. Do not get me wrong; I am very happy and excited for Taylor and Kate.  I have no doubts that they are right for each other, and it is wonderful to see how happy Taylor is when he is with Kate.  I am just surprised by my feelings of sadness at being at the end of my family-rearing era and life as I have known it for decades will never be the same. SOooo . . . . . what is next in the family category?  Why, full-time grand parenting of course!  Although I now live across the country I am doing my best to make sure I connect with my grandchildren and be a blessing in their lives.  The other day two of my granddaughters deftly reminded me that I am starting to look more and more like a grandma.  Kylie refers to my hair being grayish (I give it blonde highlights to try and avoid the gray look.) and Cassie, while sitting on my lap and playing with my arms, lifted one of them up and said, “Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle as she pointed out the loss of muscle tone in my upper arm.  I yelled out to Aubrey, “I am officially an old grandma!  My arm “muscles” jiggle now!”  (I have not quite decided if I am going to do some serious muscle toning exercises or just embrace my grandma-hood, deteriorating body and all.)   

Anticipation.

The newest Kauffman family.

Kate will make a wonderful mother.

Grandmothering is great!

My sweetheart of 38 years (36 married).

Time Flies

“Time flies when you’re having fun” was something my parents often said, and I said it to my children too; usually in irony when the “fun” was really a hectic schedule or something not so fun that needed to be done.   This time I can honestly say that time does fly when we’re having fun.  The last few months, along with the next few to come, have been filled with more family opportunities than will most likely happen for a while.  After returning back from Arizona and the birth of our 10^th grandchild, Garrett Kauffman, David & Jessica’s son, we were blessed to have Taylor bring his fiancé, Kate Garlick, to New York for a visit.  It was wonderful to get to know her better.  We feel so blessed that he has found someone grounded in the gospel as well as an all around intelligent and enjoyable person.  Taylor often told me on the phone that he loved to make Kate happy and I can see why.  We too enjoyed seeing her beautiful smile and hearing her laugh.  We are looking forward to their upcoming marriage on June 25th.

Not long after Taylor and Kate left us Lindsey and Adam along with Alina and Anna came for a visit.  This was the first time one of our toddler grandchildren has been here and it was a true test to see if we had what we needed to keep her entertained and happy.  (I’ve decided that we may need to get a few more toys before we have any other preschoolers come our way.)  So it was a good thing we were not in the apartment too much anyway.  My favorite times were at the Met’s game, the carrousel ride, the subway rides, Central Park, the ferry ride, the zoo . . . . Ok, I loved it ALL.  I found it rather enjoyable when I volunteered to take Anna while Lindsey, Adam and Alina rented bikes and rode around Central Park.  It was a beautiful day, and I decided I would rather carry Anna in the Bjorn and push Adam’s backpack in the stroller.  When a 55-year-old woman is carrying a baby in a Bjorn in Central Park, she gets some very interesting looks from people.  First, people would usually look at how cute Anna is and then their eyes would drift up to my face and this quizzical look of, “Could she really be the mother or is she the nanny?” would come across their face.  Central Park is a great place to people watch and I felt like I contributed to the entertainment a little. 

Arizona Vacation

I know the pictures do not really capture, nor can words adequately describe, the enjoyment I had on my latest trip my to the “Never, Never Land” of grandchildren.  This time I was in Arizona with Addilyn (4), Kate (3), and Garrett (3 wks.); David and Jessica’s delightful children.  With Jessica having recently delivered our tenth grandchild, I went under the guise of helping out.  But I was really filling my reservoir full of grandma loves and memories to last me as long as possible while I am back here in New York without family.  It is working so far.  I have been home here in New York for a week now, and I still feel alive with the memories of my trip and the love of my children and grandchildren. 

You’ll see in one of the pictures that Kate Kauffman and Alina Bangerter are hugging each other. With Jessica’s generous invitation to come for a visit, Lindsey and Adam drove from Albuquerque on Friday night, April 1^st, just to spend a few hours with us for general conference weekend before traveling back to Albuquerque on Sunday. It was a joyful bonus for me to see and visit with them too and to watch the little girls playing with each other. 

May I just say that I love the magic  “Pixie Dust” of the airlines that makes it possible for me to travel great distances so I can play my grandma role to the fullest extent.

"It's a Marshmallow World"

One of my enjoyable memories as a child is standing around the piano singing with family members as my father played songs from the 40’s and 50’s. I especially enjoyed it when my mother would join us and sing in her clear soprano voice. Although my Dad’s hands were large and calloused from working long hard hours they seemed magical to me as they danced across the ivory and ebony keys to produce beautiful music.  Some of my favorite songs were, “How Much Is That Doggie In the Window.” “Sparrow in the Treetop,” “There I Go,” “Perfidia”, and “Jambalaya.”

I thought of my Dad this past Thursday morning when I awoke to see a world blanketed in snow.  I found myself humming, “It’s a marshmallow world in the winter, when the snow comes to cover the ground.  It’s the time for play, it’s a whipped cream day, I wait for the whole year round! .  .  .”  It was a nice memory as I looked out at the snowy landscape welcoming Stan and I so thoroughly to a New York winter.

This January has officially been claimed as the snowiest January on NYC record.  Gratefully, we had purchased a snow shovel and had it in the trunk of our car for such a day as I was looking at. As you can see from the pictures, once Stan was able to get the trunk open, he was used the shovel to dig out our car from the street.  (It took him over an hour to dig out.) He was grateful for the offered help of a “snowplow”  (alias - garbage truck) driver.  Although this help was not quite the same as our wonderful neighbors back in Utah, it still speaks of the kindness of many individuals here in this city.  Now with the forecast of more snow this week it seems that our “marshmallow world” will be here for a while longer.  (This last storm was great snow sculpture snow followed by mild sunny days. I f I had a few children or grandchildren to help me, we would have found someplace to build a snow sculpture . . . maybe a giant piano with a marshmallow on it.)

My Trip to "Never, Never Land"

2010 was a year of great change and consequently growth for us.  Gratefully, it was topped off with the wonderful gift of a new grandchild.  Anna JaLayne Bangerter arrived on Friday, December 10th in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I arrived in Albuquerque  on Thursday evening of the previous week.  Anna’s arrival time allowed me a whole week to be able to play with two-year-old, Aliná,  Not only was it great to have so much one-on-one time with Aliná, I also learned something about myself.   I missed the simple play of years gone by, and I saw the creative play of a child from the eyes of a grandmother in a way I had never seen it before.

As a mother, I did not allow my children to jump on the couch or beds.  They could take blankets and put them with the cushions, and occasionally the mattresses, to build forts but jumping on furniture was not allowed.  It was one of my attempts at teaching respect for belongings while preserving their usefulness and thus our limited budget.  However, as a Grandmother, I found myself stretching my old rules to accommodate the joy of the child.  With Aliná’s delightful laughs and smiles, and fueled by the confinement of an apartment, we made up new games that revolved around the couch.  It was so much fun that when Aliná wanted to play, she would tell me she wanted to play the “couch game.”  When you watch the attached video clip  of one version of the game, please be sure to notice that although I was standing on the couch, I did not jump on the couch; just off it.  But after so many years of my Kauffman enforced “couch rules” I felt a little guilty even standing on the couch so thanks Lindsey and Adam for putting up with my Peter Pan antics. It was great fun! I found so much enjoyment playing with a two year old.  I look forward to more creative play with grandchildren in the years to come.  What now?  With the help of a little "Pixie Dust" I left Never, Never Land and traveled back to the reality of a whole year in NYC.  (Copy and paste the following URL to see a video clip of the grandma game:  <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/enIKEw6YSE0" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>

Anna

Alina, the big sister.

I love holding newborns!

Getting a ride in the laundry basket.